Samsung

Samsung still isn’t calling it a recall, but its tune might change really soon, and not for the better. Currently, Samsung is just “strongly” urging owners of its Galaxy Note 7 units to trade in their potentially explosive phablets for something else (or wait a new Galaxy Note 7 model). But if the US government has its way, that will transform into an official product recall. And in other places, like France, Samsung is reported to be taking even more drastic measures, remotely deactivating devices in a worst case scenario.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a statement advising anyone who owns a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to “power them down and stop charging or using” them, the reason being due to the explosions resulting from the Lithium-ion batteries packed inside them. “When these batteries overheat and burst,” the commission said, “the results can be serious." For its part, Samsung has said it has been collaborating with the CPSC following the announcement it made in recents days.

Over at its UK website, Samsung has attempted to put fears to rest regarding its “explosive” Galaxy Note 7 phablet. Practically just repeating what we’ve heard so far, and ambiguously denying others, one new detail surfaces regarding the cause of the so far 35 reported incidents involving spontaneously combusting batteries. That said, the rather terse explanations won’t exactly stop the fallout from the battery problem, especially as flight authorities and airlines start banning, or at least warning against, the smartphone.

It would appear that Samsung is plotting to re-release its Galaxy Tab A 10.1, which was released earlier this year. With this new variant, however, users will be getting S Pen functionality. According to SamMobile, which got its hands on leaked press images of the Galaxy Tab A, the S Pen that's included with the new model will be the same one found in the Galaxy Note 7, so this release will combine hardware from two Samsung devices.

Samsung is facing a very large recall with about three dozen of its Galaxy Note 7 flagship devices having caught fire while charging due to faulty batteries. This has left Samsung to a recall that is expected to cost the company and the battery supplier in the area of $1 billion to make right. With the risk of fire from these devices, word came down this week that the FAA might ban the device from being carried on airplanes in the US. Airlines in Australia were even faster with banning Samsung's phablet from certain use scenarios during flights.

If you own a Galaxy Note 7 and haven’t decided whether to turn it in or not, your next flight might help decide for you. Although nothing has been decided yet, the FAA is reportedly mulling over the possibility of disallowing the embattled smartphone, and their owners if they insist, to embark on planes in the US. That said, a ban will immediately take effect, no questions asked, if Samsung does make an official recall, which is probably why the manufacturer isn’t so keen on doing so just yet.

It’s probably not an understatement to say that Samsung, at least on Android, has gotten split and multi windows down to a “T”, having nearly perfected that feature long before Google even approved of it. Now it seems that Samsung is considering pushing the envelope even further, to interesting and partly insane degrees. A patent filing reveals that the manufacturer has toyed with the idea of a smartphone that not only runs two operating systems, namely Android and Windows, on the same device. They can even split the screen between them.

Apple is gearing up to finally reveal the iPhone 7 tomorrow, but ahead of that announcement, we're hearing that the company might have a new faith in the phone's expected performance. According to sources from the iPhone supply chain in Taiwan, Apple has increased its orders of parts for the iPhone 7 by 10%, apparently expecting sales to exceed its original forecasts.

Samsung is really in a heap of trouble, even if it is mostly its mobile business that will directly be affected. The case with the exploding batteries on the Galaxy Note 7 has become a total mess, and Samsung will have no one else to blame. That’s because the batteries in affected units apparently came from Samsung SDI, the company’s own battery making affiliate. After this fiasco exploded (literally for some), Samsung has reportedly decided to stop using those batteries in future production of the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7.

Just as things were looking really good for Samsung with the launch of its popular Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, it all went wrong. Reports of Note 7 smartphones catching on fire while charging started coming in and then Samsung officially announced a recall on all of the Note 7 smartphones that had been sold. Analysts are now chiming in on what the recall is expected to cost Samsung, and the number is massive at $1 billion.

At CES early this year, Samsung’s newly formed Creative Labs showcased a few concept smart products, and one of the most curious was a smart belt called Welt. Curious partly because of its perhaps poorly chosen name, and partly because it embodies the ultimate dream of wearable devices: an inconspicuous piece of clothing or fashion made smarter. Now the team behind the smart belt is seeking to bring the concept to fulfillment and, unsurprisingly, has taken to Kickstarter to make that happen, despite ties with Samsung.

In case you haven't heard already, Samsung has now issued a worldwide recall for its latest smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7, after reports of the devices' batteries exploding or catching fire. The risk to users to relatively low, since there have only been 35 cases of damaged phones reported globally out of an estimated 400,000 units sold, but Samsung says it has chosen to act "out of an abundance of caution." While some might feel the Korean company is being fairly proactive about the issue, the US's Consumer Reports wouldn't agree.